NewsMax reports Fr. Sirico’s warnings about the politization of the Pope’s visit to the U.S.

Pope Francis’ upcoming address to Congress, during which he may warn of the dangers of global warming, could turn into a political fiasco, says Rev. Robert Sirico, president of the Acton Institute.

Sirico said Friday on “The Steve Malzberg Show” on Newsmax TV that the Pontiff’s tendency to speak “off the cuff” could be exploited by the right as well as the left.

“Had I been asked, and I wasn’t, on whether the Pope should address the joint session of Congress, I would’ve said no,” Sirico said.

Why didn’t they ask Fr. Sirico?

“Why? Because it lends a whole political atmosphere to whatever he’s going to be saying to the Congress.”

Pope Francis is, of course, all politics. He has a political agenda and it’s not good. Politicization is the point of FrancisChurch.

“There’s no way the Pope is going to come out of that chamber without people putting a political spin on it whether to the right or the left,” Sirico said.

No spin will be necessary for the Leftists who interpret his speech to Congress. The only spinning of the Pope’s words will be from those ‘conservatives’ and orthodox who try to make Pope Francis sound faithful, responsible, respectful, or just.

“The Pope is visiting us not as the head of Vatican City State, not as a politician, not as a monarch, but as a pastor, as a bishop.”

Pope Francis is a powerful shepherd. It’s just that his staff leads in the wrong direction. He’s also a brilliant politician and a monarch, ruling without limits.

But Vicar of Christ? Perhaps, somewhat, when the opportunity presents.

I was about to say that people are eagerly anticipating Pope Francis’s encyclical on the environment, but maybe they are no longer needing to anticipate: According to this news report the encyclical has been leaked to an Italian newspaper.

It is interesting to think about who would leak it and why. The Vatican condemned the leak and noted that the leaked version is not the final version. Maybe there are things in the leaked draft that are not going to be in the final version, but that the leaker wants to put “out there,” so to speak, as having the apparent (although not the genuine, official) support of the pope. But this is the kind of thing about which somebody on the outside (like most of us) can only speculate.

It is also interesting to see how the news coverage leading up to the encyclical betrays–as usual–considerable misunderstanding of Catholicism by the news media. There is an article on the Breitbart website that says that the “political left is hoping for a document that ties belief in global warming to a religious obligation.” To be fair to the political left, the Breitbart article does not name any leftist who has openly expressed this hope. But even if this is a total misapprehension on Breitbart’s part, it is interesting that the Breitbart writer could make a claim like this.

It isn’t necessary to cite an example of leftist writers hoping for the Pope to tie global warming to a religious obligation. That is exactly what Laudato Sii is all about, and there isn’t one voice in the mainstream press who doesn’t see it.

Such a claim seems to show a very limited understanding of Catholicism and the nature of the pope’s teaching authority. The standard formulation holds that the Church has a teaching authority in relation to faith and morals. But global warming does not pertain to faith or morals. I don’t mean to say that there are no moral obligations in relation to global warming. If it is happening, and if it is caused by human beings, and if something can be done to stop it, then there might be a moral obligation to takes steps to stop it. But only “might,” because such an obligation would depend on the consequences of those steps.

It’s not unfair to expect non-Catholics to assume that the Pope’s words on Global Warming have some moral and religious weight. That’s because historically his words did. To most of the post-Christian world the Catholic religion is just years of papolatry, so they are expecting ‘the faithful’ to simply fall in step.

In fact you will be hard-pressed to find even knowledgeable Catholics who would agree that the Pope has zero authority to preach worldwide emergency response to apocalyptic global warming propaganda. Instead, most writers will fall over themselves to find some justifiable interpretation for the Pope’s outrageous ideas.

The one who really should understand his own moral jurisdiction, and yet does not, is Pope Francis. Western society is entirely unprepared for such a ruthless, materialistic, and un-Catholic sounding Pope.

Whether global warming is happening or not is an empirical, scientific question, which is not the sort of question over which the pope has the authority to settle. You would think that the left would appreciate this, since they have complained in other contexts of the Church trying to insert itself into science.

This writer seems to forget that the Leftist machine doesn’t operate on consistent intellectual truths. It is about power and winning.

I am not, by the way, saying that the pope has no business speaking about global warming (as some Republican politicians have said recently). If the pope really thinks global warming is happening and is being caused by human beings, and if he really thinks it can be stopped, then he might have an obligation to issue a warning and a call to action. But this call would not be an act of teaching authority, it seems to me, but a kind of grave pastoral and political advice. Every Catholic would be bound to listen respectfully to this, but would not, I think, be bound to agree with it.

There are so many ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ in this article!

I’ve heard this ‘listen respectfully’ phrase quite a bit these days. Aren’t we bound to listen to anyone respectfully…unless of course they have left us with little to respect about themselves or their words?

It is hard to see how belief in global warming could be linked to a “religious obligation” in the way the Breitbart article suggests.

Well, that’s the whole point: to make Catholics, of whom the vast majority have been convinced by the media to abandon the teachings of the Faith and line up their souls for Hell, believe yet another lie. Why should it be so hard this time? Pope Francis has the entire West behind him.

Heresy drives the Francis pontificate. By their fruits you shall know them. The question is, how long will we continue to act like these schemes belong to our Faith and our Church?

How many photos of polar bears stuck on the ice in the middle of the ocean have you seen? Here’s a newsflash: polar bears live on the ice and in the sea. That’s because their food — seals — live in the same places. It’s their habitat.

Granted, polar bears are not as smart (or as good looking) as the Bear’s own species, ursus arctos, but they’re not stupid enough to swim so far out that they must pitifully die on some oversize ice cube. Where are we to believe these bears came from anyway? An ice floe that suddenly melted while they were off hunting for seals? Or, worse, global warming is happening so fast the ice is melting right under the bear’s feet!

This is agitprop. Propaganda. In a word: fake. So we must ask ourselves, why stage fake pictures that make perfectly healthy polar bears look like marooned buffoons? Because they’re lying to us big time. Climate change is a crock. Don’t believe it and don’t trust anyone who peddles it.

There’s an American kind of wisdom that’s often Protestant. It’s derived from things like scripture, grace, family tradition, self-reliance, and living close to the land. The more faithful American Protestants today are scandalized by our shackled and politicized Church. They see a good Pope pressured to resign and a liberal ringer appearing his place, and they are silent. They see feckless bishops fall in line like cards.

These Protestants don’t feel the need to rationalize, to minimize, or to spin like we do. They look at us today and feel justified in their rejection of the Church’s authority.

We can learn from them, not to reject the Church, but to defend it by thwarting the works of it’s enemies within or without. It’s a great mistake to try and ride the Church like a horse, and to count on the gullibility of the more faithful followers of Christ.